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Politicians met with allegedly crooked construction boss at Club 357C in Old Montreal, the Charbonneau Commission hears.

Paolo Catania was arrested last May and charged with fraud, consiracy and breach of trust. (Ivanoh Demers / La Presse)

By Allan WoodsQuebec Bureau

Wed., Nov. 28, 2012

MONTREAL—Two former Quebec ministers, a Canadian senator and several other Montreal-area politicians have been exposed meeting with an allegedly crooked construction boss at a ritzy private club.

An inquiry into corruption in the province is examining the registry of the exclusive gathering place for the city’s rich and famous as part of its probe into how government contracts were rigged and inflated for the profit of construction firms — some with links to the Mafia.

Among those who met with Paolo Catania, who was arrested last May and charged with fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust, were Tony Tomassi, a former Quebec Liberal minister who was the legislative secretary to then-premier Jean Charest, as well as Charest’s former deputy premier Line Beauchamp and her now ex-husband, Pierre Bibeau, a vice-president with the provincial lottery agency and prominent provincial Liberal fundraiser.

Also appearing on the guest list at Club 357c is Leo Housakos, a senator appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a well-known fundraiser for the federal Conservative party.

Housakos met with Catania for lunch on April 7, 2008 at the club, where both men were members and where Housakos had also hosted a fundraiser in June 2007 for Action démocratique du Québec, a conservative political party.

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He told The Canadian Press that he knew Catania well enough to receive an invitation to join the club, and that he would also see construction magnate Tony Accurso about “four or five times” per year for a decade, but said it didn’t mean he had any inkling of the criminal accusations that would someday be levelled against his associates.

“When I met these individuals I had no reason to believe that, three or four years later, the things that are coming out would be coming out,” he told The Canadian Press

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that it noted the “very troubling” allegations emerging from the inquiry but didn’t see how Housakos had been implicated in anything.

“We are not aware of any credible allegations against the senator,” said Carl Vallée.

Tomassi, who worked for his family’s construction firm before entering politics, met Catania over lunch in February 2008 and February 2009, according to the registry of Club 357C.

Beauchamp and Bibeau met with Catania as part of a larger group on February and May 2007, both times for breakfast.

Erick Roy, a police officer assigned to the Charbonneau Commission, has not testified about the significance of the dozens of meetings between Catania and various municipal and provincial politicians as well as the heads of several Montreal engineering firms.

Commission lawyers said they will be bringing forward a witness after a prolonged Christmas break who will be able to provide more details about the meetings.

There are suggestions Wednesday, though, that the meetings were related to a sweetheart land deal Catania is alleged to have arranged between his company and the City of Montreal for a 40-hectare plot of land valued at nearly $40 million that was to be turned into a housing development. The land was sold to Catania in 2008 for a little more than $4 million.

A previous witness, a former Catania friend and business partner, has testified that cash-stuffed envelopes were handed over to a Montreal bureaucrat on several occasions at Club 357C and recounted how, on at least one occasion, he brought $100,000 to the club and passed it to Catania in the club’s coat room.

Elio Pagliarulo said the cash was destined for Frank Zampino, a former municipal politician who was the head of Montreal’s executive committee but is now charged along with Catania in the land deal.

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